FBI tracking device found; disassembled

[ifixit] has apparently grown tired of tearing apart Apple's latest gizmos, and their latest display of un-engineering has a decidedly more federal flair. You may have heard about Yasir Afifi's discovery of a FBI-installed tracking device on his car back in October of last year. Apparently, the feds abandoned a similar device with activist Kathy Thomas. Wired magazine managed to get their hands on … [Read more...]

Xerox Phaser drum unit hacked, lives to print another day

Faced with a printer that would stop printing for no apparent reason, Finnish pirate and hacker [Janne] decided he had had enough. After doing a bit of research, he disassembled the drum assembly and replaced some components. The end result? Supposedly 'broken' printers started working again. … [Read more...]

Open Hacker Conference Badge Project Needs Your Help!

[Aestetix] writes in to tell us that the OpenAMD (Attendee Meta-Data) project is working on a new revision of their hardware, to be debuted at CCC Camp this fall. For the uninitiated, OpenAMD combines an Active RFID tracking system with social networking, and is completely open-source. You walk into the conference, put on the OpenAMD badge, and suddenly you can see yourself as a dot moving … [Read more...]

New, Inexpensive DSO now shipping

No, not that DSO

Seeed Studio's line of hacker-friendly tools has expanded by one, they've announced that beta units of their DSO Quad oscilloscope are now available for shipping. The DSO Quad is about the size of a thick iPod yet packs impressive features such as two 72MSPS analog channels and a signal generator. By far the coolest 'feature' of the DSO Quad is that it's completely open source. DSO Quad is a … [Read more...]

Oscilloscope thinks it’s a video monitor

scopevid

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. Where would we be if we listened to advice like that? [Eric] writes that with a fairly simple circuit, he's able to split a composite video signal into its constituent X and Y ramp signals for display on his trusty Tektronix 465m. A LM1881 IC does the bulk of the heavy lifting. After running the signal … [Read more...]